So full disclosure, I think I’ve become a pagan. I’m still agnostic, I don’t believe firmly in any specific deity, although I do have a belief in a kind of universal energy that exists within all things. I guess you might call it a kind of animism which is typically a pagan belief system. I don’t ascribe to Wicca specifically because it has a few too many rules for my liking, so I am definitely an eclectic pagan. I do occasionally do little nature rituals, but I do what I feel speaks to me, not just following others’ ideas. I do enjoy reading about the various Gods and Goddesses because I believe they are important archetypes of various types of energy, but I don’t necessarily see them as beings actually existing in the physical realm.

So on to the video I’m sharing for today, this is just a brief overview of a few books about pagan and new age spirituality I have been reading recently:

This weekend we have been at our church family camp. We haven’t had a lot of extra time to do sightseeing, but in what little time we did have, we visited several historical, supposedly haunted places. There was the Knox County Poorhouse which was really more like an insane asylum where the unwanted of society got dumped. So many people died from the horrible conditions there, that they started secretly burying them in unmarked graves. Some of these graves are still found today. Later the poorhouse became a Bible College, where there was a horrible elevator accident that killed several people. All of these lost souls are said to haunt the property.

Then we went to the Curtis Mansion, a house that is in horrible disrepair today, but must have been spectacular in its day. It is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a little girl.

Our last stop was at Kenyon College where supposedly there is a gateway to hell…in fact, even the church itself is said to stand on the hellmouth…quite a story huh? Of course, the college has had a lot of deaths that make it a good haunting spot. Nine students died in a fire, several students committed suicide, a few met mysterious deaths and a couple kids were involved in train or vehicle accidents on campus.

So did we see anything? Not really. We took some pics that we haven’t been able to post yet, so I will see if anything showed up on those. I could tell there were some very strange light patterns in some of the pictures, but not sure what caused that.

I often get asked why I like to visit haunted spots. Do I really believe in ghosts? Well, I don’t know. I have certainly experienced some odd things in my life that I couldn’t explain, but I don’t know why those things happened. For instance, in my grandparents’ house, you could often hear footsteps overhead when no one was there. There was also a bloodstain upstairs that would vanish when you washed it, but would soon show up again exactly as it was before.

In my childhood home, where an elderly lady died, things would often mysteriously move or things would fall from the wall and end up on the other side of the room…not really sure what was going on. The oddest incidence was probably when my grandmother died though. After her death, an anniversary lamp that her and my grandpa had gotten on their wedding day constantly flickered on and off. Even unplugged it would continue to flicker. However, the day she was buried, the strange activity ended and never happened again. Coincidence? I don’t know…but certainly weird.

I know that many fellow Christians think ghosts are unreal or are caused by demons. I’m not sure about that. My grandma was a strong Christian…one of the greatest I’ve known. I have also known faithful Christians who saw loved ones after they died, and those “ghosts” told their living loved ones that heaven is glorious and to keep living for God. Why would a demon encourage others to live for God? Plus, many ghost stories are positive tales of ghosts who have saved the lives of loved ones or helped those in times of need…would demons do that? And if they are angels, why not just appear as angels instead of ghosts?

I don’t have the answers and won’t pretend that I do. But I know there is much more out there than we can see…who knows how it all happens or what it is…but I must admit it does fascinate me.